For advancements in EUV lithography, the behaviour of thin film materials during EUV exposure in various background gas conditions is key to find the optimal material properties. Therefore, we investigated the EUV- and radical-driven degradation mechanisms of chromium oxide ($CrO_x$) cap layers (3-5 nm) on $SiN_k$ free-standing windows in a vacuum, hydrogen and water background. In this...
The authors present their recent work on the identification and characterization of latent images in EUV photoresists using a small-scale EUV reflectometry and scatterometry setup at RWTH Aachen University. Optical metrology methods like scatterometry can identify latent images, if the photochemical changes in the resist lead to an optically detectable change of the material or a variation in...
Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and soft X-ray radiation can be efficiently utilized for non-destructive characterization of nanostructures with nanometer accuracy. Conventional scatterometry enables structural characterization of periodic structures [1] while diffuse scatter measurements allow to characterize surface and interface roughness [2]. In this work we demonstrate results of the first time...
